Luleys Lullaby
by Bai-Feng333
Summary: Covered in snow. Frozen to death. Cold and lifeless. Not soft words, but Kurapika would use them all and more to describe the country he was in. Winter last long in the northernmost region of the Yorbian-continent, it hangs on with both claws and won t let go like a eager wolf. But in the end the frozen country teached him a important lesson. (veeeeeery slightly KurapikaxSenritsu).
1. Senritsus Musicbox

**Chapter 1:** Senritsus Music Box

* * *

The _sweetes_t _sounds _to mortals given  
Are heard in _Mother_, _Home_, and Heaven.

~**William Goldsmith Brown**

* * *

_The Melody sounded warm, snug,tender.__  
__So endlessly fond; like the memory of his mother´s hand caressingly running through his hair.__Kurapika eyes narrowed at that thought as he tried to silent his memories echoing quietly at the back of his head. _

_He followed the piano's melody through the Nostrade mansion floors so curiously like one of the children of Hameln once followed the Pied Pipers flute-playing.__  
_

_It wasn´t the first time Senritsu played that musical piece–not at all. But it was the first time that he was near enough to the music room that he could take a look as he carefully stepped into the room, trying not to distract the young woman from playing the piano, he was finally near enough to hear the hidden treasure between the heavy piano keys' sounds.__The little treasure stood on the piano.__It was a colorful music-box that played the original melody, just as a mother sang a soft lullaby. And Senritsu played on the massy ivories after that sweet lullaby on the piano, like a little child humming sleepy after it´s mother's song before it´s finally fallen asleep._

As most of his shin sank into the white mass of snow, a grating sound dwelled through the silent snowy forest as loud as a sudden cry.

Kurapika's eyes followed the invisible sound rising up into the thick boughs that spread high above his head–so thin and dead black like they were gaunt witch fingers stretching wide over the sky as if those witches wanted to grab the careless traveler that dared to step into their forest.

The young man thought that "witch forest" was a fitting name for this black dead woodland. When he did research about this country he had heard that this forest was so big that, when you walk through the wrong way, you can walk until the end of the northern end of the Yorbian-continent without reaching the forest edge. And he had read that it didn´t even happen so rarely because it was as if there was a magical spell around the woods that lead travelers astray like ignes fauti between the dark woods. Kurapika thought this was the desperate hyperbole of a poor travel costumer-writer that needed a good story to lure some moronic sensation-seeker to buy his book, but as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, he admitted that he now wasn´t so sure about this thought anymore. He felt as if he was trapped in an underground stoned labyrinth, with the dark woods being the labyrinth's cold walls and the thick branches being the stony ceiling that seemed to bend down with every passing hour.

"We are on the right way, Kurapika." Senritsu's voice was serene as she fought through the mass of snow that sunk her to her hips. The forest was so silent that Kurapika wondered why the young woman hasn´t heard his doubts about their way earlier in his heartbeat, but at that moment all he could answer was: "We should have taken the car."

Senritsu smiled nervously. "Basho wasn´t in the condition to drive. And the path through the forest is shorter than the way on the streets."

If it would been the moment before two hours ago Kurapika would have answered that _**HE**_ could have driven the car, but he was out of arguments to fight against Senritsu's paranoia of his driving skills. She has once learned about it in York New. That time in York New, when they had been in the hotel again, by the time Kurapika was drowned in his sea of hatred and was too distracted by the Spider, he had caught to notice that Senritsu and Basho had seemed to make a silent contract to never let the young man get near a steering wheel ever again. Kurapika noted with a grumpy sniff that he wasn´t that bad at driving, it had been just the whole situation that crashed his driving skills all of a sudden.

In the end, the young man couldn´t do anything against the unspoken rule of Basho and Senritsu therefore whenever it comes to driving, Basho had been the one who sat behind the steering wheel.

But Basho wasn´t there. Awkwardly.

Embarrassingly they had lost Basho in the hostel they spent the last night.

To be more precise, they had lost him in the hostel they had spent the last night on the ground of a beer barrel despite Senritsu's worried caveat about the strength of the domestic alcohol for outsiders during the whole evening.  
Basho came from Jappon.  
He was good with Sake and alcohol, he used to quibble that he was like a high mountain that couldn´t be swept away by that gentle little wave a mug of beer was for him, but he did not expect the alcohol of this country could hit him like an iron fist and literally beat him into a coma. The high mountain was now nothing more than a pathetic cairn of tiny little stones that laid back on the ground of their hostel room without being able to move a single finger.  
The winters were very long in this country.  
Winter buried its white fangs most of the year in the land like a hungry wolf that was too eager to let go of its helpless prey, and the winter was hard, as hard as the alcohol which the people drink to keep themselves warm inside during the cold wintertime.

"It would have been easier to drive the car; especially for you, Senritsu." Kurapika couldn´t fight the greasy sound of glee in his voice as he looked down at the short woman who had a really hard time keeping up with his walking tempo through the snow.

"I am perfectly fine!" she answered tersely and Kurapika felt his theory approved that she already lost the feeling in her abdomen and legs.

* * *

_Neon Nostrade's eyes shined like big bright sapphires as she picked up the Music box from the top of the piano. Just as a curious little child picking up a new toy she carefully opened the box.  
Senritsu watched the younger girl from the corner of her eye, her lips curled up in a little smile that was still hidden behind her silver flute. _

_The months after Light Nostrade discovered the loss of Neon's ability, he had ignored her while trying to save his family from the almshouse and as if the young girl was a little chick searching for a hen, she used to run after her bodyguards in a desperate search for attention. Of course Senritsu was the only one in the group who had been far too gentle to push the girl away and so the music room of the Nostrade mansion has unofficially becomes Neon Nostrade's (and Senritsu's) second room; a reason that made Kurapika avoid the room more than often because he had to pick between his disgust for Neon (moreover her hobby) and the love for listening to Senritsu's music._

_Most of the time his disgust wins the bitter battle, but this time he was there with a book on his knees spending his free evening in the music room, being a silent witness of Neon's excitement for Senritsu's old music box.__"You like that Music box, Miss Neon?" Senritsu chuckled gently as she watched Neon's small hands stroked beatifically over the box as if it was an unaffordable treasure.__"It´s beautiful. Where can I buy one of these boxes?" The girl cooed like she was listening to a magic lullaby. _

_"I want one too!"__Kurapika felt his eyes narrow a little when he noticed that Senritsu's smile froze for a second.__She hesitated, paused, but then as if nothing had happened, the young woman said quietly: "I am afraid this is a singleton, Miss Neon. It was made by a music box maker in my home village."_

_"__**But I WANT one**__." Neon puckered her lips like a stubborn little girl as Senritsu laughed sheepishly.__"It´s just a music box. Why don´t you buy one in the store, Miss? If you want we can go tomorrow together in the town and search for one. It would be fun."_

_"They are boring. I want a Music box like __**THIS**__," Neon mumbled mirthlessly but a sudden idea lighted up the young girls face. She clapped her hands excitedly. "Senritsu! Where is your home village? I am sure dad will send __**some guys**__ to get me one when I ask him!"_

_Kurapika watched Senritsu's jaw drop in sudden surprise, her eyes as big as plates. "I…ehm…Miss Neon the village is very far away. It would be not fair for your father's staff to send them there just for an old music box" Senritsu smiled nervously as her little hands clutched her flute so hard like it wanted to bow the silver metal. "It maybe is October, but winter starts really early in this region. It´s a cruel place in this time of the year. It wouldn´t be fair, Miss Neon."__The young man could literally "read" Senritsu's thoughts during that moment. It wasn´t a secret that they made themselves enemies while working in the Mafia. _

_If Senritsu's home village has been known there is nothing that would save their population from the risible Mafia as soon as Senritsu leaves the Nostrade Family. __Information was everything, as Light Nostrade once said back in York New and sure he would be glad to know these things about Senritsu._

_It would be the __**ultimate knowledge**__ for him to make permanently sure that at least she would never be able to betray the Mafia-leader…_

_Senritsu held the silver flute in her little hands as if it was a saving anchor. If Neon was in this mood there was nothing that could change her mind and Senritsu know Light Nostrade would grant her that wish to make sure she was satisfied and stopped annoying him.__So while thoughts ran laps inside Senitsu's mind like a rollercoaster, it was Kurapika who spoke serenely. "That is a good idea, Miss Neon. But before you go to Mr. Nostrade, let me make you aneven better suggestion…"_

* * *

"You know, Senritsu, if you had just ignored that girl like Lin-Sen, Basho and me we wouldn´t be in this situation." Kurapika wasn´t a gleeful person, but he wasn´t above to tell her that again the moment he lost the feeling in his toes.

Senritsu made a horrible little sound, like she wanted to scream out of desperation but held herself back in the last moment. She ended up biting her pale lips as she looked up to Kurapika. "Is it because you didn´t want to come with me to get the music box, Kurapika, or you just didn´t like snow?"

The young man didn´t answer her question.  
His gaze was stuck to the snow at his feet that laid on so thick and massive on the ground like a warming blanket for the sleeping earth.

There wasa soft smile curling up Senritsu's lips as his heartbeat whisper the truth to her like a snitching little child. "I don´t know what you have against snow…against winter, Kurapika. Everything looks so beautiful and peaceful when covered in snow."

The wall of woods started to thin out slowly, but all Kurapika could see was the white mass of snow. There was a moment when he was sure that he saw a little child between the woods, a lost child that was chilled through that his face has already turned as white and blue as the ice to his feet, a little child with nowhere to go and far away from the warm house he once called home. He saw himself between the woods, his twelve year old self right after the massacre of his family in the first winter after. The memory was like a cold hand stroking over Kurapika's bare cheek as he answered in a monotonous tone. "I just can´t stand the cold. All you have do in this kind of weather is sit in your room without being able to do something else…or do something more important. You're punished to inaction."

Senritsu heard his heartbeat just like she heard the _frosty echo_ of the little boy's heartbeat once lost in the winter, so all she could do was smile carefully. "Don´t say something like this, Kurapika. Winter and snow isn't that bad. It´s my favorite season, you know why?"  
And the young woman lifted her little hands up as she let them dance to a invisible melody. "Whenever it snows everyone in my village come together in the evening. The whole night they danced and played waltz and the tradition made them play tango after the waltz. It kept us warm during the long cold nights!"

It wasn´t her story but her excited up hoping voice filled with warm memories that made Kurapika smile a little. "That sounds nice, Senritsu…"

"Those nights were wonderful. My mother used to tell me over and over again how she danced in those nights with my father and–" From one moment to another the young woman stopped, suddenly, like someone had slapped her.

Kurapika blinked. He can´t remember when Senritsu had ever told him about her family. It was like she was avoiding that topic like a cat avoiding the water. "I am sorry, I didn´t intend make you remember…something."

There was a sad smile stroking softly over her pale lips: "It´s okay Kurapika, don´t bother. There are no bad memories I could remember. My parents are normal people who rejoice good health. It´s just that I noticed that I haven´t saw them since I became a Hunter, nor did I write to them…"

"You never visit them?" Kurapika had stopped walking. The forest around them was silent, it slept under the thick blanket the bright white snow was. Senritsu looked up at him, her smile was gone. "I…was very young. I didn´t think about them being worried. But then…" She moved her hand over her deformed appearance, it was an awkwardly move, a helpless gesture. "…´_**this**_´ happened. My mother is an anxious woman; she never wanted me to enter the Hunter exam. How could I look into her eyes after all what happened? I didn´t want to make her cry."

Kurapike kept his silence for a moment. There was a strange feeling reflecting in the short woman's eyes, something he could name but couldn´t understand in that moment:

It was _fear_.

Senritsu was _scared_.

Kurapika was smart, but through all his cleverness he couldn´t understand what frightens her so much.

His parents were dead.

They couldn´t worry about him anymore, they couldn´t read the letters he would have written for them, they couldn´t scold him for his mistakes.

They just couldn´t.

So his answer to Senritsu's question was just a toneless whisper of an uncomprehending boy. "You should write to your parents long as they can read your letters."

A wistful smile _twisted_ Senritsu's friendly voice. "Yeah. I should do that."

And until they finally reached the forest's edge she said nothing more.

**Tbc.**

* * *

Autores´s note: So I am blaming DW-chan for this ff . :)

I had this idea long ago, but never had the motivation to write it down, but after reading her "Of dreams and nightmares" i just HAD to. :D

Hope you all had fun reading.  
Please leave a review. ;)

Thanks a lot to Reeeyachan, because that little angel just beta read this chapter :D


	2. Trapped

**Chapter 2**:Trapped

* * *

Senritsu's home village lie in a wide sinkhole that was encircled by the forest, like the thick old woods were a rampart for the small town.

For Kurapika it looked as if those old woods weren´t saving guardians but hungry gaunt witches which had gathered around their helpless prey.

As he finally stepped out of the forest he and Senritsu were greeted by the sundown red light, tainting the snow scarlet.

"So?"

The young woman looked up to him with a crooked smile, making Kurapika frown quizzical his eyebrows. "What do you mean, Senritsu?"

"You're the first person I had led to this place. What do you think about it?" Senritsu's challenging smile seemed like it was glued on her face, which made the clueless young man frown even more.

"It´s… _cold_."

With a theatrical sigh Senritsu covered her face with her small hands; a quiet chuckle left her pale lips which sounded like an airy song: "You're a true poet sometimes. I should have asked Basho."

"I can give you a proper review when I had seen more of the village." Kurapika couldn´t help but curl his lips snarky when the woman mentioned she´d better asked Basho, so without any other comment he turned to the small road beginning next to them that led down the hill between the little red houses. It was a thin road but the snow had turned into a strong, nearly stony hard paved ground because the people had walked on it over and over again.

It was Senritsu's little hand clinging to the sleeve of his greatcoat that made him stop.

Perplexed, he removed her hand with his. Her short fingers were as cold as ice-cubes as he even felt them shiver through his thick gloves. She wore fingerless gloves–a stubborn habit he noted, an idiotic habit she had because the flute player she was didn´t like to mute the feeling in her fingertips: "What's the matter?"

"That's the wrong way. The Music box maker´s house is not in the village." The young woman smiled up at him and pointed to the other direction. "She lives in a house in the property of some rich family here on the hill." Senritsu's little fingers folded around his while leading him along the forest's edge, like he was a lost little boy she had to bring home.  
It was a caring gesture of the young woman, gentle, snug and friendly.

But it made Kurapika's lips curl again

He wasn´t a child.

At least he didn´t want her to handle him like one.

Not her.

So the sound of his voice was slightly strained with a bugged echo as he asked. "What does it mean with this family?"

"Their property is from the point we entered the forest from the street to where the house is built," Senritsu answered casually, looking over her thin shoulder.

Kurapika didn´t even had to look in her eyes to know that she didn´t told him everything, it was an untold fact she loved to forget that he was as good in reading _her_ as she was in reading _him_. "That doesn't answering my question, Senritsu."

There was a routed smile spreading over her pale lips as Senritsu shook her head in a hopeless defeat, sighing like a clueless teacher that explained something for a hundredth time to a curious child. "Well then as you wish, Kurapika. It is my mother'sfamily property."

_'My mother's family' __**not**__ 'my family'._

Kurapika felt his leery eyes narrowing when he heard those certain words. He had expected something like this before. Hunters are free people who wouldn´t bound themselves to someone or something else, so it was natural that those people break free from bounds as soon as they could–like every prisoner would use every slight chance to break free from their chains. Senritsu was a gentle, faithful and kind person, but she was a Hunter too and he had expected that she used to avoid associating herself with her family and everything connected with it.

In the end this was just the _nature_ of every Hunter.

Senritsu huffed, uncomfortable. She felt convicted, condemned, like a guilty criminal. "You know, I spent most of my childhood straying through that forest in the property, that´s why I was pretty sure we won´t get lost on the way."

"I see…" was all Kurapika said to her unwilling confession and Senritsu looked at him with a haunted expression, rushed, chevvied, _badgered_. So the haunted little deer she was in those moments continued to talk as if she owe him to defend her actions.

"That´s what everyone in my family did. It was like a family tradition. My mother told me she met my father in the forest. He was…_is_ a traveler who got injured there. She helped him and took care of his injuries…"

Before their eyes, a house slowly came into their sight, half hidden between the long shadows of the black old forest trees. It was a house with Falun-red wood walls which made such a strong contrast to the white snow and the dark trees that it nearly hurt Kurapika's eyes looking at it. The supporting wood beams of the house were as white as the snow around so that it seemed like the snow were the icy beams which holds the house in a hard grip.  
There was the fragile shadow of a smile scurried hastily over Kurapika's pale face as he continued to watch Senritsu's helpless try to speak up for herself as they reached the house door.

Suddenly Senritsu's face lost its color.

From one moment to another her eyes grew wide in surprise and she suddenly turned her head abruptly to the house with an ashen pale face, as white as the snow at their feet.

She was strained, tensed, silent, and frozen in her movement.

"What's wrong, Senri–?" Kurapika blinked quizzically, but a harsh move of Senritsu's little hand in his direction drowned his words in his throat.

"Do you hear that?" she asked and pushed back rashly the thick hood of her red jacket that had covered her ears, Kurapika knitted his eyebrows in a wary gesture, but followed her example and listened carefully.

There was the sound of a soft breeze fondling over the snow interrupted by the hollow crunching of the black trees that used the wind to cradle themselves into a winter slumber.

But there was _something else_.

There was _something else_ between the wind moaning and faint crunching, quietly, scarcely audible–nearly infrasonic.

A weak voice groaned with pain.

Before Kurapika could even make another thought, he and Senritsu had torn the door open with so much adamant force that the door was nearly taken off its hinges. The fact that the door was originally sealed did not hurdle them even in the slightest. The iron door lock crushed to the wooden ground with a shattering sound like breaking glass.

Without any hesitation Senritsu rushed before and up the stairs into the upper floor while Kurapika followed her, looking around the room and noticing at the edge of his consciousness the broken furniture, crushed glass and shattered clock pieces all over the wooden ground.

In the upper floor the hastate ceiling was braced with thick, black beams that disappeared even higher in the darkness of the old roof.

Intuitive Kurapikas eyes followed the old beams up to the dark roof.

And up there, nearly on the highest beam, there, was hanging a man with only his wrists knotted on the beam. The ropes had bitten so deep in his flesh that blood dripped already on the lower beams and colored the black wood crimson.

Kurapika hesitated only a single second.

"You **stay **here, Senritsu!"

Senritsu tried to ignore Kurapika's order as she was already on her way up to the beams above their heads, with one her little feet leaned on the wall and her small hands searching for a safe hold above her head to reach the much higher beam.  
But she huffed loud in surprise when the young man suddenly grabbed her around the waist and pitilessly pulled her down to the ground again like a motionless puppet.  
"That man is too heavy for you. **You stay here**," he said again, with a reckless sound in his voice he used to have whenever giving orders to the bodyguards–a relentless sound which didn´t allow any dissent.

Before Senritsu could say any other word, the young man had jumped up and wrapped his hands firmly around the beam above freely in the air he swung his lower body back and forth until he had enough panaches to close his legs around the beam too so that he wouldn't need a single minute to swing his upper body around to kneel on the top of the beam.

Smoothly like a climbing cat he stood up and dexterously balanced his weight on the beam, looking thoughtfully up to the other beams over his head to find a fast way to get to the other man.

"Be carefully, Kurapika!" Senritsu's voice sounded worried from the floor.

The young man forced himself to a comforting smile down in her direction, just to meet her deformed face twisted cruelly with great anxiety.

Swiftly, the young man looked away again.

The other man was like six beams above Kurapika and the wood under him was greasy from old blood dripping on it, so Kurapika decided to look for the safety of the wall as he climbed higher–with one foot on the beams and the other leaned on the wall while his hands reached for the beams above him. Once his twelve year old self had been climbing every tree in the Kuruta village and as ingenious as the child he once was he climbed higher and higher.

The blonde young man had already reached the last beam under the hanging man and was now balancing his feet carefully over the wet wood. He bit his lips nervously while trying desperately to hush the penetrant though it needed just a simple push to let him loose his foothold and send him mercilessly down to the ground again.

And in that case he would probably bury Senritsu under him, who would be so foolish to not hesitate to come for him to help.

Kurapika grimaced at that thought.

Poor woman.

Carefully Kurapika laid his hand on one of the arms of the hanging man. He didn´t hesitate and started to cut the ropes with the knife he used to carry in his sleeve. There was a gnashing sound, like the breaking of old wood when the first rope finally gave in.  
The other man groaned in pain as one half of his body slumped down like a wet sack of potatoes, but of course immediately Kurapika was there to support him. The man was built like a oaf, with a back as broad as an bear. The young man's eyes couldn´t help but get big in effort when he felt like he was squeezed like a little insect by the other man's weight.  
Of course Kurapika was strog enough to carry the man, but to do so he would have must grab the orther man harder, what would have make the other mans bones shatter as easy as frail wood.  
The eyes of the other man flicked a little.

Cold sweat ran over his face.

"Clam down, Mister." Kurapika hissed quietly through his teeth while he started to cut the other rope with the knife. "Everything is fine, I am a friend."

It was right before the other rope finally ripped, as suddenly the other man panicky opened his eyes wide.

Before Kurapika could react, the other man made an angry cry–a furious sound–and started to push the younger boy away.

"Stop it!" Kurapika snarled loud as he grabbed with one hand the beam above him, like a frantic little child. "I am here to help you, Mister!"

The beam scrunched under their weight as both of them swung on the wood wildly to both sides in a desperate attempt to get a hold of their balance.

It was the moment when Senritsu's sudden startled cry seemed to crush Kurapika's hearing when they finally missed the safer ground of the beam and stepped into loose air.

Before Kurapika could do any other action, the ground rushed against him and the other man.

The Kuruta felt his feet hit one of the other beams and then the wooden floor welcomes him back on the merciless hard ground.

It wasn´t such a hard fall, no, not at all, Kurapika had been very fond of tree climbing in his younger years and was therefore no stranger to the pain when he finally hit the ground again, but what really made Kurapika cry out in pain was the other man's torso squashing Kurapika's stomach flat on the ground.

Senritsu yelped like a beaten animal as she rushed over to them and moved the other man carefully from Kurapika. "Are you alright?! Are the two of you fine?!"

The blonde young man just watched her with wide open eyes and suddenly loosed any motivation to ever stand up again. He felt like he was nailed to the ground with iron nails through his arms and legs.

"You IDIOTS!" The other man lay with his bold arms leaned on the wooden floor, gasping in pain like a fish out of the water. "You blockheads! You Bastards! What do you want from me! Haven´t you hurt me enough already, you brainless pigs?!"

Senritsu knelt next to Kurapika and raised her little hands in a helpless gesture. "We are not here to hurt you, we are here to help–"

For the fact that the other man had just fallen down the whole length from the roof to the ground, he had a surprisingly strong voice. "Ha! HELP!?There is nothing left you scumbags could steal! Get lost, before those village idiots notice you're here!"

Kurapika looked with narrowed eyes to the other man who didn´t stop yelling names to them and if he understood the words between the many insults right and the people of the village had ravaged the house and hung him up on the beams, he finally understood the reason **WHY** they did so.

And Kurapika was sure he could really understand their actions.  
Senritsus little hands pat his thin arms as he leaned on her to get up, wheezing like an old man.

A sudden sound from outside the house made the other man suddenly choke on the insults.

Next to Kurapika, Senritsu twitched back like a scared little deer.

There was the sound of footsteps in the snow, threatening, like a bad foreshadowing.

The sound echoing from a lot of footsteps.

"Look at what you´ve done!" The other man snarled like a _trapped_ dog, gesturing helplessly to stand up. "**They saw you entering the house**!"

**Tbc.**

* * *

**Autores note: Tamtamtam!**  
Cliffheanger!  
I hoped you had a great reading! ;D  
THANKS so much to Reeeyachan! she beta-read the whole chapter!

And thanks to DW-chan, Sakurano-chan and Blaze808 for the reviews, love ya! :D


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